Everybody's Fool
by OneHellOfAKitsune
Summary: Ciel and Sebastian are working on a new murder case, and thus end up in Undertaker's shop looking for information. They weren't expecting to find Undertaker having a handstand contest with a woman who calls herself Grimmie! ...Yeah, I know, the summary sucks, but the story is a lot better than it sounds. Rated T because I have paranoia, and the romance part comes later.
1. Chapter 1: That Shinigami, Handstands

**A/N: Yay, first story~! I've had this idea in my head for a while now, but I could never post it because I've been using the mobile site on my iPod, and I could never figure out how to publish stories using it :/  
Anywho! On to the story~ Kitsune out~!**

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Ciel and Sebastian hesitantly walked into Undertaker's shop, wary of his odd tendencies. The blue-haired child knew full well what to expect when the mortician spotted them, and was a bit surprised when Undertaker didn't make his -slightly creepy, in Ciel's opinion- request for laughter in exchange for giving the kid information on whatever case he happened to be working on at the time (a mass murderer case. Again. Couldn't the criminals of London be a bit more creative with their crimes?).

Instead, the Undertaker was engaged in what looked like an I-can-do-a handstand-longer-than-you contest, and had ditched his long cloak for a normal suit. His opponent was a brunette woman wearing a white puffy shirt with elbow length sleeves, a form-fitting black vest, rounded rectangle shaped glasses, and a pair of black pants that shimmered like silk.

"..." neither Ciel nor Sebastian knew what to say. However, Undertaker did, apparently.

"Ah, hello little earl~ Are you here about the new murder case?" He asked calmly, a serene expression on his face, despite the blood rushing to it due to his being upside down for who knew how long. The brunette woman spoke up.

"This one's not very creative, and messy about it too... I'm not too fond of it's style." She said, an irked expression on her face. Undertaker launched into the air using his arms, and landed on his feet, about to ask for a 'first-rate laugh' as he put it, but the mahogany-haired woman spoke again, launching herself to her feet as she did so, "Ha! I told you I could stay upside down longer than you, Theo~!" she cried out, pointing a finger at the silver-haired shinigami.

"Theo? So that's your real name...!" The little earl muttered, a bewildered expression on his eyepatch-adorned face. The brunette woman, who had yet to give a name herself, promptly burst into laughter.

"Why are you so surprised? Did you really think his name was Undertaker?" she asked between bouts of laughter. Sebastian was ready with a coolly voiced reply.

"Of course not, my lady. My Lord knew that 'Undertaker' was not Sir Theo's true name (at this point, Undertaker hummed in pondering, then mumbled "Sir Theo, that one's new. I like it~"), but prior to now, he had never known what his real name was. If I may, might we know your name, since we are on the subject?" He ended his question with a smooth smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Oh, I suppose I should tell you two what you can call me, shouldn't I? My name is Alessandra Grimm. Most people I know just call me Grimmie, since 'Alessandra' is a bit of a mouthful, and any shortenings of it sound horrid in my opinion." Grimmie stuck out a hand for Ciel to shake, and he did, introducing himself and Sebastian to her while he did. After he'd done that, she extended a hand for Sebastian to shake. He shook her hand as well, very happy that she did not expect him or Ciel to kiss it instead. Sebastian found the tradition weird and annoying and positively human.

"Well, this has been entertaining~ But not enough to classify as a first-rate laugh. Little earl, you do know you'll get nothing if you give nothing, correct~?" Undertaker inquired of Ciel, a grin on his face.

"I'm well aware. Sebastian, give him a 'first-rate laugh' as he calls them." Ciel replied, boredom creeping into his voice.

"Yes, my lord. May I request that you step outside for a moment?"

"Fine. Make the joke quick, then." Ciel was a bit irked at not being able to hear the joke, but knowing Sebastian, a second thought made him glad to not hear it.

"I'll escort the little lad out!" announced Grimmie, marching towards the door, lightly tugging the 'little lad' out with her. She showed him out, and closed the door just as Sebastian was saying,

"There once was a woman from Que..."

A few moments later, the shop was shaking from the force of both Undertaker's and Grimmie's laughter. Sebastian opened the door with a "Young Master,

you can come back in now." Ciel followed his butler back inside, to be met with a still hysterically laughing Undertaker and a giggling Grimmie.

"How in the world is a demon so damn funny~?" gasped Grimmie between giggling fits. Ciel and Sebastian narrowed their eyes and took on a guarded expression.

"I had my suspicions you weren't human, Lady Grimmie, but now I know for sure. You're certainly not a demon or an angel... You're a Shinigami, a Grim Reaper if you will, are you not?" Grimmie took on a faux hurt expression when Sebastian said she certainly couldn't be an angel.

"You wound me, leashed demon- I certainly couldn't be an angel?" she dropped her 'hurt' act and cocked her left hip, resting her hand on it, "Actually, I don't care about that, I'm just surprised you figured me out so quickly. Although considering we're not fighting to the death and I'm not trying to break your contract with Ciel to 'show him the light', whatever the hell that means, I guess I might as well have just told you two when you walked in the door."

Ciel spoke next. "Look, I really don't care what you are as long as Undertaker gives me the information I need to solve this case."

"You mean you haven't figured it out yet~? Silly little earl, I thought you were supposed to be the best~" taunted Undertaker, straightening a coffin that had fallen down.

"You know who it is!? Tell me!" Exclaimed Ciel, immediately wondering how many times Undertaker had known who the culprits were before he did.

"Ah, ah, ah! You merely asked for information to help you solve the case. You never told me you wanted me to tell you if I know who the culprit is. I can tell you

what you asked me to, but I won't tell any more~" Undertaker once again taunted Ciel, for he was so close to solving the case, yet so far at the same time.

Ciel huffed in annoyance.

"Theo, why must you tease the poor boy? Although it is very entertaining, shouldn't we just tell him who it is?" Grimmie mock-solded the mortician, obviously not meaning a word of what she said, besides the part about the whole ordeal being very entertaining.

Ciel's eye began to twitch.

"Eh, perhaps we should, but I don't particularly like the Queen, and giving away the culprit would certainly make her happy. No, I think I'll just give hints, and leave the problem solving to Ciel."

"Alright, but I want to tell him how all the victims died~!"

"Certainly~"

"Would SOMEBODY please tell me SOMETHING!?" Cried out the very ticked off Ciel, Sebastian silently laughing at his suffering.

"Ok, little lad, I'm gonna tell you how the murderer killed his victims, so pull up a coffin and listen to Auntie Grimmie~!" The brunette happily trilled out. Ciel reluctantly followed instructions and sat down on a (hopefully) empty coffin. Grimmie knocked on a few coffins before finally taking a seat on one.

"Why were you knocking on the coffins?" inquired Ciel, honestly curious as to why she did that.

"Oh! See, the coffins can't really be opened unless there's multiple people lifting the lid or the one person lifting it is obscenely strong. Since I don't feel like opening multiple coffins to find an empty one, I just knock on the sides of them~! A coffin with a body inside had a different sound than an empty one because the sound waves made from a full coffin can't bounce around as much and have a much more muffled sound than an empty coffin." Grimmie then proceeded to knock on the side of the coffin Ciel was sitting on, "That one's got a body in it~" After staring at the coffin in shock for a minute, the blue-haired noble quickly scrambled to a different one that the brunette shinigami had deemed empty. "Anywho! The murderer seems to be trying to reignite the Jack the Ripper panic, but they have no clue how to tear out the uterus. After killing the person -slash to the jugular vein, by the way- they just make very ugly gashes in the body, then tear up the inside looking for the organ they want to rip out. I doubt they even know what it looks like."

"Thank you, Lady Grimmie, for that...enlightening piece of information." Sebastian said with a bow, "I believe I can make a suspect list for My Lord now." He looked to his contractor for approval , although in reality, he didn't really care about the brat's approval.

"Yes, thank you for helping us with this case. We shall take our leave now." Ciel announced, boredom being the main undertone of his words. He got up from the coffin he was sitting on and walked to the door.

"Goodbye, little earl~" This came from Undertaker.

"You'll be seeing us very soon~!" Continued Grimmie.

"And it will not be a happy occasion on which we will next meet..." Undertaker finished, although neither Ciel nor Sebastian heard him.

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**A/N: How was it? I've got so much more written out, but I'm not sure if I should keep posting it. Review, and tell me what you think~!**


	2. Chapter 2: That Shinigami, Bad Memory

**A/N: Thanks to Akatsukismidnightsun for being the very first to review my story~! If you want me to write you a cameo appearance or something, let me know,k~?**

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A few days had passed, and Grimmie had decided to go wandering around London, since she had finished reaping her assigned souls for the day. None of the souls were very interesting, just ordinary people with ordinary lives and ordinary thoughts. The people wouldn't really do anything extraordinary, sadly, so the reaper had no choice but to take their souls.

Normally, her job was very sad, especially back when she had to do her rounds during the big Black Plague epidemic- so many innocents who had done nothing wrong were dying horrible and miserable deaths, and had welcomed her when she came to end their suffering. One in particular, a little eight year old girl, had broken her heart with her welcoming and anticipation of death...

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"Izabelle Astrowski. Age: Eight as of nine-thirty-two A.M. Cause of death: Bubonic Plague, commonly called 'Black Death'. Time of Death: One-forty-eight P.M." the reaper read out of her copy of the To-Die list, then checked her watch, and kneeled by the little girl's bed, looking at her. "Little one, I'm very sorry, but you only have fifteen minutes left."

"Oh, I do? How do you know? Are you one of those grim reapers Mommy tells me about?"

Grimmie smiled down at her, thinking, 'Why not tell her? She'll be dead in a few minutes, and I might as well make her last minutes happy', then replied in a gentle tone, "Yes, I am. My name is Alessandra Grimm, but you can call me whatever you want, ok? Would you like to see your family before you go?"

"Yes, please let me see my mommy, Grimmie! I want to say goodbye to her. Just please don't let her new husband in with her. He's not Daddy, and he doesn't like me anyway..."

The reaper, newly dubbed 'Grimmie', gave the girl a hug, and said, "Of course. You'll be happy, I promise." and got up to find the little one's mother. She didn't usually do this for her...clients, let's call them, but she felt like she had to for this case. She couldn't stand to see children cry, and that little girl would surely cry if she had no one but a stranger by her when her time came.

Grimmie had quickly found Izabelle's mother not far from the 'hospital' her daughter was quarantined in, and although the woman couldn't see the reaper, she suddenly had an urgent need to talk to her fatally ill daughter (courtesy of the unseen bringer of death).

"Izabelle, dear, how're you doing?" the mother asked of her precious child, stroking the hair away from the eight year old's forehead.

"Mommy! You're here! Grimmie found you!" Izabelle exclaimed, hugging her mother.

"Izabelle, hush, precious. I'm not allowed to be here, so we have to be quiet, ok?" After further thought to what her daughter had said, she then worriedly questioned, "Who's Grimmie?"

"You'll meet her eventually maybe, Mommy. You'll know her because she's really nice and she has eyes that glow!" Grimmie was getting a LITTLE worried. Humans not on the To-Die list were not allowed to know about the Shinigamis, except for VERY special cases. If the mother believed her daughter, then the higher-ups would have Grimmie's head on a silver platter! Luckily, the parent thought that this Grimmie person was a figment of her sick child's imagination.

"Alright, sweetie, I'll keep an eye out for Grimmie. Go to sleep, lovely. I'm so proud of you, you're such a trooper." she saw the shadow of a doctor approaching, "Mommy has to leave now, just remember, I love you very much, and I always will. Bye bye, Izzie."

"Bye bye, Mommy. I love you too." her mother hugged her for what the little girl knew as the last time, and rushed off before she could be caught by the doctors. Grimmie nearly cried at this scene- she was used to parents leaving their children behind in search of release from their pain, she was used to people begging for just one more day, she was used to people begging her to just end it, even though she couldn't legally collect their souls until a few minutes later, she was used to everyone but her client knowing the latter was going to die, but she was not accustomed to a child knowing they were going to die and not even crying about it. She walked over to the small one and knelt by her again.

"It's nearly time for you to go, little Izzie. Anything you would like to say? Everyone always does, whether it be a confession or a question."

"I'd like to say thank you, Grimmie, and I want to ask you if you could maybe start asking people to call you Grimmie from now on. I think it suits you a lot, and you should be called that!" Izabelle replied, coughing a little at the end.

"I promise. Reaper's honor~!" Grimmie said with a silly grin, holding up her hand to show the 'Reaper's honor' pledge.

Izzie giggled. "Howcome grim reapers are always drawn as being really scary and mean-looking? You're a grim reaper, and you're not scary OR mean-looking!" she asked in pure curiousity.

"I don't know, little Izzie. Maybe it's because the people who make those drawings aren't as brave as you are~" She checked her watch. Thirty seconds left for this wonderful little girl to live. It wasn't fair at all. Grimmie pulled out her Death Scythe, a big throwing star in the shape of a (very pointy) swallowtail butterfly, about one and a half feet in length.

"Izzie, I'm sorry, but you have to go now." Grimmie hugged the little girl, and heard her say,

"Thank you, Grimmie. I don't know what I would do if I had to see all these poor people suffer for much longer." Grimmie began to cry, then scolded herself for shedding tears over one person. Shinigamis weren't supposed to cry over the dead! They were only supposed to judge, reap and go!

That didn't help at all, it only made the tears fall faster.

Grimmie quickly reaped the sick girl's soul, going through her memories and temporarily storing them in her Death Scythe. She ran from the quarantined hospital, not wanting to spend another minute there.

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**A/N: Yes, this one was short, but chapter three will be up in, like, fifteen minutes, half an hour tops.**

**I realized I didn't write a disclaimer last chapter, so here goes- I don't own Kuroshitsuji, only Grimmie, Izabelle, and her mother. (the last two won't make another appearance, but just thought I'd say it)**


	3. Chapter 3: That Shinigami, Short Chapter

**A/N: Alright, last one for the night. Imma sleepy. It's short, but whatever. I wrote this and last chapter as one chapter, but decided last- minute to split them in two. Either way, you'd be left with a cliffhanger.  
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHA. (yawns)**

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...Why had THAT memory resurfaced?

Snapping out of her thoughts, Grimmie noticed that it was already dark, and had gotten herself lost.

'Good job, smart one. Now what are we supposed to do?' piped up the annoying little thing called her conscience. No wonder she never listened to it, the damn thing was so mean!

'...shut up...'

She continued to wander the streets, hoping to find something or someone to help her get back to Undertaker's shop and help him prepare the bodies for tomorrow like she had promised. Instead of finding what she was looking for, the brunette stumbled upon Ciel, Sebastian, an unconsious and heavily bleeding blonde, and a man with a crazed expression on his face.

"Hi, little earl~!" cried Grimmie, wildly waving her arms, not really caring what situation he had gotten himself into.

The crazy-looking man noticed the reaper, and rush towards her, a knife in hand. Grimmie recognized him as the Jack the Ripper Copycat, who was put down on the To-Die List to be reaped...now.

He was sliced in half by a butterfly-shaped throwing star, and fell to the ground, dead before he could realize what had happened. His memories burst forth, nothing in them that was worth noting. Grimmie saved them in her Death Scythe.

"Well, that's the end of that. I trust you figured out who he was?"

"Yes, we did. Was that metal thing your Death Scythe?" questioned Ciel.

"Metal thing? My Death Scythe just CUT A MAN IN HALF and you call it a METAL THING!?" (If anyone's having trouble here, Grimmie loves her Death Scythe to...well, death, and is very sensitive if poeple don't call it by it's proper names, either Throwing Star or Bob. And yes, that is a proper way of using the apostrophe in "it's". The apostrophe either indicates that "it's" means "it is" or "it" is in posession of something, which in this case is "proper names")

"May I enquire to the name of your Death Scythe, then, Lady Grimmie?" requested Sebastian, trying to ease the tension. He didn't really feel like fighting another Shinigami at the moment.

The Shinigami in question had already cleaned the blood off her beloved Death Scythe, and replied, "Technically, it's human name would be 'throwing star', but I call it Bob."

"...Bob?" murmured Ciel, questioning the reaper's intelligence at that moment.

"Yes, Bob." Grimmie replied childishly, lovingly stroking the blades of her Death Scythe (non-creepy stroking...).

"Ok then... We have to go, Elizabeth needs medical attention." Ciel said, and Grimmie looked over to the bleeding blonde.

"Oh, THAT'S her name! Was she supposed to be the next victim?" questioned Grimmie, tilting her head slightly to the left.

"I guess she was. You can see how long people have left in that black book, right? How long does Lizzie have?" asked Ciel, concern for the girl evident in his voice. Grimmie simply smiled that silly grin she had.

"She won't die tonight, or tomorrow, or the day after that. That's all I can legally tell you."

Ciel looked happier at that statement, and said a silent thank you to the reaper in his mind.

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**A/N: RAAGH, IT'S SO SHORT! But whatever, I think I did pretty good- a new story with three chapters in one night. I'll post a new one in a day or two. Heck, I might post one at three in the morning for all I know~! Bye~!**


	4. Chapter 4: That Shinigami, Broken Dishes

**A/N: Here's the next chapter~! READ IT.**

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The next day, Ciel wasn't very happy. Elizabeth had hit her head fairly hard when she fell yesterday, and she hadn't woken up yet. Ciel assumed it was just because she was tired, but when not even the commotion caused by the three Stooges he called his sevants didn't disturb her, Ciel became worried.

He was sitting at his desk doing paperwork, hoping to chase away the growing doubt that Elizabeth wouldn't wake up any time soon, when there was a knock at the door.

"Yes?" asked Ciel, "Come in." The person that had knocked on the door was Finny. He'd probably knocked down more trees...

"Master, two people are at the door. They seem very odd, should I tell them you're not here?" the gardener asked with a childlike expression of uncertainty on his face.

"What do they look like, Finny?"

"Well, one has really long grey hair, and he won't stop laughing... The other is a lady with the coolest eyes ever- they look like they have two colors! She's laughing, too. It's kinda scaring me, they won't stop..."

"Let them in, Finny. Don't forget, they'll be expecting the Phantomhive hospitality." Ciel wasn't really sure why the two were there, but he figured it must be important, since Undertaker had never come to the manor before.

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Finny had followed his employer's instructions, and Bard had even made tea for the strange visitors.

Well, it was tea. Then it met Bard's blamethrower.

Finny was starting to wonder when Sebastian would be back from his errands- he usually took care of making sure the guests were comfortable.

Mey-Rin was going to come running up the hallway, a big stack of plates in her arms, taking her usual route like she did every day. It wasn't something unusual for her to do, and the untimely death of the dishes were also expected.

The guests, however, didn't know that.

"I'm getting bored..." mumbled the brunette with the two-tone eyes. She proceeded to put her chin in her hands, an expression of intense concentration on her face. Suddenly, she jumped up, hands on her hips, looking determined. "I KNOW! I'm gonna go explore the little earl's house, mmkay?"

It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and Bard and Finny knew it. They tried to convince her otherwise, because any second now, Mey-Rin was going to whiz past the door, trip on something, and fall, breaking all the dishes she was carrying.

Bard and Finny couldn't even begin to imagine how angry Ciel would be if his guests saw that.

Grimmie didn't listen to them, however. She tended to have a one-track mind- once she wanted to do something, she'd do it. She opened the door to the sitting room, and walked out of the room, into the hall.

At this precise moment, Mey-Rin and her plates came sprinting down thee hallway, barreling into the brunette.

"OH MY GOSH, I'M SO SORRY, MA'AM! HERE, LET ME HELP YOU!" Mey-Rin shrieked, scrambling off the woman and attempting to get all the shards of broken china off of the guest.

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Grimmie wasn't sure what just happened. Her head hurt from when she hit it against the wall and again on the floor. She was fairly certain that a blur of dark blue and white had just run into her, knocked her over, forced all the air out of her lungs, and broke dishes on her, causing shards to cut her on her face, her arms, her neck, her stomach, and her head. They weren't too deep, but they still hurt and they were still bleeding.

Undertaker had heard the maid's screeching, and came out of the sitting room to see what had happened, abandoning his book (well, technically, it was Ciel's book, but he was reading it. So there.). He saw Grimmie on the floor, covered in cuts and broken china with a dazed look on her face, and the three servants fussing over her, trying to help.

His eye twitched. They shouldn't be touching Grimmie.

"You three, move. You don't know what you're doing." He said, all humor in his voice gone. The three idiots obeyed, scurrying away from him, huddling a few feet away. Undertaker carefully helped Grimmie up- she was shaken up, and that bump on her head wasn't helping either. He noticed that there was a cut by her jugular vein. It wasn't nearly bad enough to kill her, but she'd lose a lot of blood if he didn't fix it.

"You, cook with the cigarette, go get a medical kit. You, gardener, go find Phantomhive and bring him here. Redhaired maid, go get a broom and clean up the broken dishes." They had told him their names, but he hadn't really been listening- Grimmie had told him a really good joke, and he was still laughing at the time.

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**A/N: Undertaker seems OOC to me... Well, bai~! See you next chapter~!**


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